All posts by Nils

By day, Nils works as a project manager in the IT industry. By night, he explores strange new worlds, protects the downtrodden, and practices conquering the world. To follow his exploits you can subscribe to his YouTube channel, Have Joystick, Will Travel and follow him on Twitter.

And not only that, I’ve picked up the torch of Sci Fi world-building again. Thanks to Emmett‘s comment, I ditched my old, ugly world generation scripts written in shell and awk (really, what was I thinking). I always wanted to learn Python anyway.

So far, my script does some basic generation work. The beauty here is that it not only reliably produces data using supplied random seeds, I also set this up in an object oriented fashion. That is, this is wholly modular and I might end up with an entire universe generator in one piece of software.

Anyway, here’s some sample output:

And yes, it’s called hello.py because I started with “Hello World” and then just kept adding pieces. I guess this is about 2h of work so far.

The BBC posted an article about modern designs of research stations in the antarctic. There are some really, really gorgeous designs and these are of course much more practical than ye olde wooden shed.

This was posted on Reddit a while ago; someone created graphics showing what Earth sunsets may look like if our Sun were replaced with another star. I do not know how accurate these images are, but they are surely beautiful:

A year ago, units of “Federal Peacekeepers” landed on Seton (0714 Sentinel Sector) and began to conduct systematic searches of private homes looking for “Imperial collaborators”. Hundreds of individuals, and in some cases entire families, were executed on the spot as the searchers discovered evidence for treason. The people of Seton, at first stunned at the development, picked up arms and fought back. 95% of the federal soldiers were killed in a night, and the local government overthrown. The Setons declared a counter-revolution – but instead of supporting the old Empire, they declared independence.

The Setonian revolutionary government realized that it could never stand up to Republican might alone. It quickly brought nearby worlds into the fight (most of them dependent on Seton for trade), and declared a new nation, the “Free Worlds”, to be organized as a loose confederation once liberty had successfully been defended.

While Seton itself is a regional economic power with some ship-building capacities, most of the other worlds in this alliance can not offer much more than moral support for the war of independence. Celeste (714 Sentinel Sector) barely fits the bill, with a population of 112 million.

Despite its relatively proximity to Avalon, the Free Worlds have managed to survive a year mostly due to the Republic’s over-extension. The revolutionary government is currently trying to take Johnson’s Junction (0215 Sentinel), a small tech level D vacuum world with large shipyards. Losing Johnson’s Junction would almost certainly escalate the Republic involvement, however, as it will turn the Free Worlds from a nuisance to a potential threat.

Mercenaries of all sorts can find gainful employment if they do not mind violating dozens of Republic laws to do so. The Free Worlds have little cash to spare, but will provide training, equipment, repair and ammunition for ships, and land grants on Arcadia or any other member world. Free traders will find a ready market for many essential goods, and smugglers will be able to profit from running weapons, medicine, and many other goods.

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The BBC posted an article about modern designs of research stations in the antarctic. There are some really, really gorgeous designs and these are of course much more practical than ye olde wooden shed.

This was posted on Reddit a while ago; someone created graphics showing what Earth sunsets may look like if our Sun were replaced with another star. I do not know how accurate these images are, but they are surely beautiful:

Astronomers have discovered an exoplanet, in the system, J1407b, which is 200 times the size of the ring system of Saturn. There are also gaps in the rings which they think indicate the presence of moons there. The Contact Light setting has got to have at least one gigantic ring system like this!

Ancient Star System

In other news, Kepler has found an ancient planetary system. The system, Kepler-444, is 11.2 billion years old. It has at least five planets – all of them too hot to support life – but it means ancient systems can exist amidst much younger stars. Planets on which civilizations rose and fell long before life even got started elsewhere.